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them a mere three months, not counting a few billing cycles to handle the customer confusion and concerns. Although a single platform is planned, TA couldn't wait: once again the driver was market share, not cost savings or operational efficiency. The new unified bundle, with exclusively on-line bill presentation, allowed TA to slash prices and, according to Rupert, achieve "enormous market success." When competitors complain to the regulator, you know you've made an impact.

The final presentation on convergence was by Navaneeth Kumar of Wataniya Kuwait. Navaneeth described some of the problems and obstacles encountered in trying to transform an existing environment into a converged one. Lots of useful lessons here, and Navaneeth ended up quite convinced that a single vendor solution would have made life a whole lot easier. But he hasn't found one yet. Wataniya chose to streamline the organization too, combining the technical (network) department with IT at an early stage. Clearly this can create benefits over and above the need to converge systems and one that it would be good to hear more about.

Can We Ever Get There?

The round up and wrap up was led by Hugh Roberts. As always, Hugh provided the audience with much to consider. Perhaps most importantly, he suggested that we may never be able to get the sun, moon, and stars to align. His observation is that Business transformation and IT transformation happen on such different time scales that they get in the way of each other, and, in fact, can cause the other to fail. Yet, despite the disruptive choices available to operators (stay a "bit carrier," become an eco-partner, or become a movie studio?), every one of them involves customers buying services.

That means that bills must go out in order for revenues to come in. So, stay tuned for BIMS 2009, more relevant than ever to find successful choices.